Cboe Global Markets, Inc. (Cboe: CBOE) announced it will begin offering Bitcoin Continuous Futures (PBT) on its Cboe Futures Exchange (CFE) starting December 15, pending regulatory approval.
Ethereum Continuous Futures will also be offered. Earlier this year, CBOE had announced a November 10 start date but has since delayed the launch.
These new futures are designed to give traders long-term exposure to bitcoin without some of the operational headaches of traditional futures. Each contract has a 10-year expiration and a daily cash adjustment, which means positions are automatically updated every day to reflect the underlying asset’s price.
In effect, this creates a “perpetual” exposure. Traders no longer have to manually roll contracts every few months, which has been a major friction point for investors using conventional futures.
Cboe’s regulated products
“As perpetual futures have historically been traded offshore, Cboe is excited to help expand access to these products within a U.S.-regulated, transparent, and intermediary-friendly environment,” said Rob Hocking, Global Head of Derivatives at Cboe. He added that the product is designed to help investors manage risk efficiently, gain leveraged exposure, and execute tactical trades in digital assets.
The new contracts will use real-time price data from Kaiko, a digital asset market data provider, to track bitcoin and ether. Each day, a “Funding Amount” adjusts open positions to keep the futures price closely aligned with the spot market.
This ensures that the contract accurately reflects the value of the underlying crypto, which is important for anyone using these contracts to hedge or speculate.
Anne-Claire Maurice, Managing Director of Derived Data at Kaiko, noted that these U.S.-regulated continuous futures remove much of the operational friction that institutional investors face when managing offshore perpetual contracts.
“They allow investors to gain long-term crypto exposure efficiently, while still benefiting from the oversight and transparency of regulated markets,” she said.
The contracts will be cash-settled and centrally cleared through Cboe Clear U.S., a CFTC-regulated clearinghouse. This reduces counterparty risk, making it safer for traders compared with unregulated or offshore derivatives.
Margin requirements will follow CFTC rules, and there may be opportunities to offset margin requirements with other CFE-listed futures, such as the Financially Settled Bitcoin (FBT) and Financially Settled Ether (FET) contracts.
In short, Cboe’s continuous futures bring the convenience of perpetual-style crypto exposure to a regulated U.S. market. Traders can now hold positions in bitcoin and ether long-term without the need for constant contract rollovers, while benefiting from transparency, centralized clearing, and regulatory oversight.
